Sandra Lee Gallery hosts a two person show investigating the interplay between the natural and theoretical world. Alongside Holly Blake’s enigmatic paintings of astrological and numerical symbols, Jeremy Morgan presents an abstract landscape series that transcends the limits of our tangible surroundings.

Holly Blake’s paintings actively contemplate the connection between the material and non-material world. Her imagery is derived from esoteric systems, astrology and alchemy, mingling with more ordinary botanical and quilted patterns. Around these hovering emblems, Blake builds up an abstract atmosphere through the paint that unites these fragmented thoughts. With an expressionist approach, Blake uses brilliant blues and saturated yellows to drip and curl light and color in and around the objects. Labyrinths, orbs, and cells, flutter and bounce off one another generating at once both a tension and playfulness. Through these works, Blake presents the world as operating through a balance of confusion and clarity, the visible and the invisible and successfully creates images of suspended order and chaos.

Similarly, Jeremy Morgan’s paintings and collages explore the merging of the physical and metaphysical. Morgan composes environments of miscellaneous terrain, sky, and space, contrasted to form a surreal landscape. While some sections collide and fight for a place, others harmoniously share the space, reflecting the spectacular power of nature to develop and form. Using translucent blues and yellows, light pierces through the sheer portions of the paint, radiating from a source within, and contrasting against the sections of cavernous shadows. By building these sheets of light and dark, Morgan echoes the geographic layers of earth and successfully renders both its design and spontaneity.

Holly Blake is the Residency Manager at the Headlands Center for the Arts which provides residencies for professional artists in a range of media from more than 30 countries. Jeremy Morgan is an Associate Professor of Painting at the San Francisco Art Institute where he has taught for 24 years.